There are lots of powerful laptops out there in the market but not all-powerful laptops are suitable for engineering students because its not the power that you need. Surely, engineering students require laptops that are powerful enough to manage all the complicated applications and computational tasks as well as to handle all the graphics required to handle the CAD simulation and CAM software. So, this article will guide you on 10 of the best laptops available for engineering students.
Firstly, the most important thing an engineering student should look at a laptop is the CPU and GPU. Then the amount of RAM for their requirement. It is better to have SSD rather than HDD because the OS runs smoothly on SSD and gives much fast and better performance. The display and keyboard are not to be left out. The display should be also be considered as most of the time is spent on staring the display and tiny code all day. So, it is better to have a nice display that is crystal clear and bright.
The weight and portability of the laptop should also be in preference with good battery life. It would be such a great if you can easily carry your laptop and take out in public places, and start doing work while waiting for friends or colleagues.
That is why we have summed up some top laptops with all the preferences including performance, build quality, display, storage, and battery life. These laptops will be able to handle any kind of engineering task and project you will be dealing with.
Table of Contents
Best Laptops For Engineering Students 2020
1. HP Spectre X360
It’s a 13.3-inch package laptop and is light and small. This thing fits easily on your backpack and you can carry it around with one hand because of its lightweight.
The laptop comes with a braided power brick of USB type-C. You get an HP stylus inside the box which would be great for designing. USB C hub is included consisting of two normal USB ports, an HDMI port, and a USB Type-C.
The design of the laptop is fairly seen to be very slim and practical. The name X360 is given for a reason because it is a 2 in 1 laptop and will flip all the way around. You can put it in a group of different modes to use it.
A fingerprint scanner is included to make the laptop more secure. Talking about privacy, it has this webcam kill switch to on-off your webcam. When it’s off, it won’t activate the app where you have allowed camera access. It comes with a full-size keyboard which Is comfortable to type on with backlit included. The trackpad is wide for convenience.
HP Spectre X360 ‘s 13.3-inch display comes with 1080p and 4k resolution. You can choose whichever suits you for the better. It has these minimal bezels that make the display even more astonishing.
In terms of performance, it is equipped with inter i7 10th gen CPU which is more than enough to carry out your daily performance tasks including heavy stuff calculations, animation, gaming, and video editing. The CPU can boost up to 3.9 GHz clock speed. And it is powered by Intel Iris Plus Graphics to handle all those multi-tasking. You will get 8bg DDR4 ram onboard and 512 Gb SSD for storage.
You would get a pretty good battery life on this laptop. It will run for 22 hours and also supports fast charging.
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2. Lenovo ThinkPad X1
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X1 is a reputed ThinkPad series and is one of the most established laptops around. The laptop is ultralight and weighs less than 2.5 lbs which makes it easy to carry around.
Like all ThinkPad systems, X1 is engineered for durability. ThinkPad X1 is made to endure a harsh environment and will bear some of your accidental falls off. It comes with a great keyboard. Typing on this keyboard feels like more luxury.
Some of the notable features of ThinkPad X1 is the Thinkshutter tool that conceals the front-facing webcam whenever it is inactive. It has a built-in fingerprint scanner that comes with anti-spoofing technology to add an extra layer of protection to your data and information.
In terms of performance, ThinkPad X1 does not lag. It is equipped with Inter i7-10610U CPU that is quite enough to handle the daily tasks without any lag. You get 16 gigabytes of RAM storage to handle multitasking. 512 Gb of SSD is a better choice to go for with all these outstanding features.
It has a great battery life that lasts up to 19.5 hours. You can get 0% to 80% within an hour of charging; thanks to the laptop’s built-in rapid charging technology.
3. Razer Blade 15
If you are a gamer and doing engineering then Razor Blade 15 is the one you should be looking for. It is one of my favorite laptops on the list. It has the looks, the specs and is made by a reputable manufacturer. It is overall the whole packaged laptop though the price is not cheap.
You get a new 10th generation Intel CPU, an RTZ 2060 Nvidia GPU, 521 GB SSD, and 16 GB of RAM. With these specifications, this is your go-to laptop if the price is not your concern. Almost all computing things can be handled. You can even go for high-end gaming with this laptop. And if you are into video editing thing, then you just got your bonus thing.
 Talking about the display, it comes with two models: advanced and basic. The advanced model has 300Hz FHD Matte or OLED 4K Touch. Whereas the base model has 144Hz FHD Matte or OLED 4K with no touch.
It comes with the cooling system; Vapor Chamber on the advanced model and Advanced Heat Pipe on the base model. The keyboard on Razor Blade 15 consists of phenomenal RGB lightning. You can also change the light of the individual key on the advanced model.
The battery life on Razor Blade 15 does not have a good reputation though and will last only 5-6 hours which is less compared to other laptops. Razer has its own razer branded ac adapter that uses a proprietary plug. The advanced model has support for USB C charging.
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4. Apple MacBook Pro
Apple MacBook Pro has a 13.3-inch panel with a very high native resolution, somewhere between full HD and 4k. Colors appear bright, the text is sharp and there’s True Tone feature which optimizes the white balance of the screen for the nature of the ambient light around the laptop.
It comes with a new Magic keyboard that fixes the reliability problems of the previous MacBook Pro keyboard. The keyboard is solid and is much better. Since it is an Apple product, the design is premium and has a high-quality build.
MacBook Pro comes with two models: 13-inch and 16-inch. The 13-inch MacBook Pro comes with Intel Core i7 and the 16 inch gets the Intel Core i9. The 16 inch is the powerful one. And it is powered by AMD Radeon Pro 5600m with 8GB of HBM2 memory. If you are looking for a more powerful performance, then 16-inch would be the best choice. However, the 13-inch one would also make the job done.
The battery life as a whole has been pretty solid as well. It gives around 10 hours of battery usage. Well, if you are getting into something heavier than web browsing like video editing or gaming then the battery is going to drop off pretty significantly depending on how heavy the task is that you’re doing.Â
5. Microsoft Surface Book
Microsoft Surface Book is a full powerful pro laptop with a GPU and a lot of horsepower battery in the base. You can even detach it and turn it into a tablet. It has a massive influence on the 2-in-1 laptop scene.
Surface Book is not your traditional laptop. The hardware of Surface Pro is nicely built. The fancy and strong snake-like hinge on the locking mechanism, the flat design, and the washed-out silver color of the laptop, everything about it just seems magnificent.
Surface Book comes with i7 10th gen intel CPU with 32 GB RAM and 512 GB SSD. It is also packed with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 graphics. You can do a bunch of stuff that leans heavily on the GPU like CAD drawing, making your workflow a bit faster.
The battery life on Surface Book Pro is pretty good and lasts up to 10-12 hours depending upon the task consuming the battery. It is featured with quick charging and can get your laptop from zero to 100% charge under two hours.
6. Samsung Notebook 9 Pro
Another 2-in-1 laptop on the list is Samsung Notebook 9 Pro. It weighs in at 2.85 lbs and is only 0.55 inches thick. You can rotate the full HD screen 360 degrees to use it in either notebook mode or tablet mode. With that kind of versatility, you can use this 2-in-1 device for work, home, travel, and even at the neighborhood park.
It has got a 13.3-inch display with a 1080p resolution touch display. The display is Samsung technology AMOLED. It’s very good and you get 350 nits of brightness. The Samsung pen is included for this device for more flexible use. It’s still an S pen technology and is very good and fluid.
The design just looks good. It has two Type C Thunderbolt ports, one regular Type C port with an audio jack. It also has a power button with a fingerprint reader all built into one. You get one microSD card slot which is becoming increasingly very rare. It has more of a modern-day keyboard.
Talking about specification, it has a Core i7-8565U with 8 GB of RAM. You also get the Samsung SSD. No, exclusive GPU is built into this. You are going to get just Intel HD graphics. With these specs, it still does all the basic engineering works you will expect from a system within its price range.
It has a big enough battery to get you through the workday. You can run Notebook 9 Pro for about 9-9 hours in a single charge while connected to a wireless network.
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7. Asus ZenBook 15
Asus ZenBook 15 comes with the best design, all-metal design with 92% of screen-to-body ratio, edge to edge display, and a golden ASUS logo on the back. It is the world’s smallest 15-inch laptop.
It has some cool features like a built-in secondary display that also acts as a trackpad. The prices are well set considering all the specs it provides.
The built quality is superb on ZenBook 15 The hinge is really strong and automatically tilts the keyboard at a 3-degree angle to optimize your typing experience. It offers a good balance between size and portability. You can easily carry around if you are in school. It is fairly thin and light; you can easily tuck it in a bag pack.Â
It has managed to fit a full-sized keyboard and the key themselves are excellent. The keys are in an adequate amount of travel distance. The keyboard is backlit so you can see it well in dark.
Still, with the slim body design, it features a Core i7-1050U processor which is a quad-core chip with 8 threads. It comes with 16 GB of dual-channel RAM and 1 TB of NVMe SSD. It has the additional GPU GTX 1650 Max-Q to boost heavy tasks like video editing, photo editing, or 3D work, anything that would benefit from having an additional discrete graphics card.
ZenBook 15 has a fairly large screen with good battery life. It is powered by a high-capacity battery that won’t let you down. It comes with a 73 Wh Li-polymer battery that can last up to 17 hours.
8. Dell XPS 15
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The Dell XPS 15 is one of the best laptops for engineering students for their uses and requirements. It features all the modern design tweaks: a larger screen with an incredibly thin bezel.
XPS 15 screen comes with 1080p and 4K variant. It has good color accuracy. Dell has been delivering some tremendous display for years and XPS 15 has got one. It has a 93% screen-to-body ratio with a thin bezel that is almost invisible. The 16:10 aspect ratio gives XPS 15 a little more room for juggling multiple windows and going through large codes.
 XPS 15 has an improved keyboard and trackpad. The keys are spread out more widely which makes it feels like you are typing on a full-size desktop keyboard. The trackpad is also bigger and works well, and deals with multiple gestures.
It is a far better machine and features 8 core i7-9750H CPU, 16 GB of RAM, and 1 TB of NVMe SSD. It also includes NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 for better performance. The true test of this machine is in the real world and it won’t let you down. The GTX 1650 is more than enough to handle your simulation and calculations smoothly and seamlessly.
XPS is an ideal workhorse station giving you battery enough to last for your need. The battery on this thing lasts up to 8-10 hours.
9. Lenovo Legion Y7000
Lenovo Legion Y7000 is a top-level laptop by every standard. It has some of the impressive hardware and software features. It delivers incredible performance, a beautiful and bright display with a 144Hz refresh rate, and comes with a great package.
Its powerful internal include 9th generation Intel Core i7 CPU and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 with Max-Q graphics making an excellent choice for engineering students. It may not be the cheapest option available out there but it’s a pretty affordable laptop compared to other gaming laptops.
Lenovo Legion Y7000 comes with 8 GB of internal RAM to handle all those multitask processing and heavy calculation stuff. You cannot be left behind with all the specs and features it provides. The 512 GB SSD gives the OS a more smooth and fast performance making it the laptop of your requirement.
In the battery department, it is slightly behind. It has a runtime of almost 6 hours. Charging from empty to full capacity, it takes 2 to 2.5 hours.
10. Acer Aspire 5
The last in our list is Acer Aspire 5 that comes with great specs and is pretty able to handle those engineering tasks. It is not a powerful laptop compare to other laptops on the list. But it still is the top-rated Amazon product due to its price.
Acer Aspire can be considered as the best budget laptop. It has a 15.6-inch IPS display with a 1080p resolution. It has the backlit keyboard with a number pad. The trackpad is pretty normal size. It has even got the ethernet cable which is quite rare to be seen in a laptop these days.
The Aspire model has been around for a long time and is constantly producing laptops that give a lot of value for your money. Aspire 5 is powered with an AMD Ryzen 5 3500U processor and AMD Radeon Graphics. It can power all your multitasking needs. With plenty of cores to utilize, AMD Ryzen 5 gives you the performance to do more in a faster way.
Aspire 5 comes with 8 GB of DDR4 RAM and 256 GB SSD storage. It has HDCP support Lithium-Ion Battery that can last up to 6 – 7 hours. Considering the price, this laptop has everything an engineering student requires.
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ConclusionÂ
Laptops on this list range have their unique features and different specifications. However, most of them deal with performance, durability, design, and portability. These laptops can deal with all the things needed for an engineering student to handle their processing and calculation tasks. With the specification of your requirement, you can choose from one of the above or the one that is not included on the list.
Since you are likely to run complex programs like AutoCAD, you’re going to need a laptop with enough power to run them. We recommend you to go at least with Intel Core i5 or i7 chips. You will be needing at least 8 GB of RAM. 16 GB would be much better for handling multiple tasks. If you need laptop programming, 4 GB of RAM will get the job done. And you can upgrade it later. A dedicated graphics card would be the choice of your requirement. If you want to do some gaming on a laptop other than doing work, it is highly recommended to go with a dedicated GPU.
There’s nothing like a perfect laptop and you have to choose one among others. If the price is your concern, Acer Aspire would be a great choice. If you want the best specs with no price consideration then Razer, ZenBook, and ThinkPad may be your thing.
